Conceptualising Internationalisation in Hybrid Criminal Courts

Abstract

While hybrid tribunals have become increasingly popular in the fight against impunity for international crimes, there is little clarity on exactly what elements must be present to classify a tribunal as hybrid. Answering whether or not a tribunal is hybrid in character can have crucial implications for its jurisdiction and competence, the applicable law, and its status. Recent decisions of tribunals confronting this question have chosen to consider a variety of characteristics of the tribunals, rather than seek a definition based on essential elements. This paper defends this approach to conceiving of the internationalisation element of hybrid tribunals, in favour of a precise definition. It also develops a methodology that can be used for determining whether a tribunal is hybrid through a process of analogical reasoning and proposes criteria that may be applied by courts for this purpose.

Keywords: international criminal law, hybrid, courts